Baking with dry starter
Greetings
Does anyone here bake with a dry starter?
Today, I stumbled upon this french-sourdough-bread-from-a-powdered-starter-recipe at KAF website, which uses a powdered starter they sell online here. It comes in a tiny pack that contains 5g, enough for making 12 sourdough loaves.
The idea caught my attention. If that really works, then we can dry our own starter, and use just 1/4t each time we bake. No need to maintain or feed anything, as the powder form lasts for a year in the fridge. And we can dry more anytime.
When baking, all we need, according to KAF, is to make a sponge, 18-20h ahead, made of 1/4t dry starter powder disolved in 1c warm water, and mixed with 2c flour (2/5 of total flour).
Does a dry starter has enough yeast power to make the dough rise on its own? because I noticed that their recipe has 1/2t IY in the final dough.
Did anyone try this before?
bakes with dried starter and she loves it.
She buys her in a supermarket in Germany though and the packets are larger, I think 50g.
I shall ask her how much she uses per loaf and if she uses yeast with it.
She is happy with the loafs, they turn out beautifully.
That's great to know. If possible, please also ask her about the steps and timings she takes to bake with it, and for how long it can be kept in the fridge (or is it kept in the freezer?)
I shall ask her tomorrow when I phone her:)
That's too kind and sweet of you Petra.
I keep in the fridge for 2-4 months as it is and can make a levain from it in 8-12 hours no worries at any time. No need to buy a dry starter or maintain one unless you want to be tied to it, waste flour and your time or want to make the least sour bread possible,
No Muss No Fuss StarterHappy baking
I've read your interesting method before. But I find it a bit complicated and needs many steps. True, you don't have to feed your stock, but on the other hand, you still have to do 3 stages to build your levain every time you want to bake. This would be huge work for me, as I bake in most days (about 5 times a week, 2 for pizzas and 3 for bread). What I'm looking for is less steps and less attendance, not more steps that I should be around in each to perform.
You can do dabrownman's 3 step build in a single step. The levain culture will have to be refreshed every few weeks or months, but once that is done, you will have a lot of culture, given the minuscule number of grams to start the full levain with.
Try it one time. If you think you like it, stay with it, if not then don't. But as with so much else in that you'll see in books, videos and TFL, there are a lot of different ways to get from point A to point B.
Forgive me, but I didn't get that. If I did 1 step, how can the minuscule number of grams be built into a full levain? Could you please elaborate?
His normal build process, taken from the table he has posted on TFL a few times, for (ex:)160g of levain:
I've tried it as starter 6g, flour 77g, water 77g with success.
Now I get it, many thanks. I've also reviewed his posts and found this here:
I will try it. I have a question regarding stiff starter: I find it hard to mix with water then flour. It takes some considerable time before it completely disolves in water, unlike 100% starters. How do you do this? I tried dissolving it in a blender with some water, but it was a mess. I tried a whisk and with a spoon and with a potato masher. They all take much time and effort, although its easier with the masher.
Stiff starters are...umm, stiff. What I do, and as with most other things in life that seem to work well enough for me, there are likely a multitude of other methods equally as good or better.
Two ways, both related: take the stiff culture and first mix it thoroughly with some or all of the water, just to get it to soften/hydrate. Then incorporate the flour. Or, using your fingers, break up the stiff starter in water, pressing the starter against the walls of the mixing vessel or between you fingers to break it up. It is a resilient little thing and doesn't seem to mind being man-handled this way.
One other suggestion after the initial mix: treat the freshly mixed levain as if it were a mini-autolyse. In other words, let it hydrate for a short period of time, then get back in there with a spoon, spatula, or small dough scraper and give it a few "turns". There is no downside to doing this, but your mix components will have been better distributed with this post-hydrated turn.
You can do it all in one build build but i might stir it once at the 6 hour mark if i wasn't sleeping. The great thing about a 3 stage levain is that you can do each stage at different temperatures to bring out different flavors like the Detmolder 3 stage levain build (there are also 1 and 2 stage of Detmolder too)
http://germanfood.about.com/od/germanfoodglossary/a/Detmolder-Three-Phase-Sourdough-Method.htm
Stages also allow you to change grains and hydration, as well as temperatures, to bring out different flavors in the bread as well. It is another fun sideline to mess with the variables of a levain build to get different flavors in SD bread. There is a whole lot more to SD than white starters and levains and the breads they make
Using a small amount of seed allows you to take the levain toward any grain or multigrain you want in a short time with no waste at all.
Another fine thing about the summer months and a 1 stage levain builds that you can just mix it all up and let it sit out overnight for the next days bread early the next morning - so no time is lost except for sleeping. The No Muss No Fuss Starter allows you the most flexibility for making all kinds if bread with the least amount of work.
If you take the small amount of starter and mix it with the small amount of water of the first build, it only take a second to get it loose enough with a spoon to incorporate the flour. I've never had a problem getting 8 g of starter to mix with 8 g of water and 8 g of flour - after that it is near 100% hydration and only 24 g total - so no worries of it not mixing
In the summer time the 3 stages are 2 hours 2 hours and 3 hours long here in AZ where the kitchen is already 86 F and 4.4.4 in the winter.when the kitchen is 64 F and somewhere in between for the fall and spring.
Happy SD baking
KAF dry starter method sounds like biga:
For making biga, all you need is to make a starter, using a small amount of yeast and some portion of water & flour, prior the final mixing for several hours. The time required depends on the hydration of the starter and the amount of yeast in starter, and the temperature.
grinding up dried sourdough starter. A biga (stiff) made with yeast is not a SD starter - it is just a preferment. IF KA is selling starter powder and all it is, is yeast, they are really ripping off people - which I doubt very much. There are very few LAB in a preferment made with yeast either a biga (stiff )or a poolish (loose) and not the same thing as a SD starter powder.
Happy baking
What they sell is dried SD starter, and their procedure is similar to your no fuss no muss method when done in a single stage, only their build is larger. That's why it requires more time to ripe (18-20h instead of 8-12)
But my question is, why do they use yeast in their recipe? Does drying a starter reduces its rising power?
of reasons.
The starter is young and not ready to do the work of lifting a bread alone. - The likely KA reason
They are professional bakers and have a very tough and short schedule that SD alone won't work in the time needed.
They are making a really heavy dough of some kind with whole grains and add ins and don't think that the SD alone will do the job.
They just don't trust their SD starter.
No question Instant yeast can make just about any SD bread look better but it won;t taste better and that is what is important to most of us.
Several months ago, I tested a few different ways of storing starter in anticipation of a three-week vacation. Upon enlivening the contestants, I kept track of the time to get them ready for contributing to a dough. The 65 percent hydration starter was the clear winner, but none took more than a few days. Details on the science experiment contestants and the results. Photo below of the contestants sitting on the kitchen counter.
A friend on TFL gave me some dried starter to take back to London. When reviving dried starter it took a few days to become active. I added water and stirred into paste. Then I fed as normal. For the first two days NOTHING! I just stirred every now and again. On the 3rd day I saw a little activity. Then after that it sprang to life. Subsequent feedings strengthened it. I don't think putting dried starter as a levain will work. Nor the first bubbling up even when you've revived it. Drying starter is a method for storing for long periods of time only.